Why the NHS reforms are like dangerous pseudoscience

Posted on February 20, 2012 by

Adam

Adam set up Dianthus Medical in 1999. He is an experienced medical writer and statistician, has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in medical statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

and filed under Healthcare Politics Pseudoscience 3 Comments

This is supposed to be a blog about medical stuff, not about politics, so I hope you’ll forgive me writing about the Health and Social Care Bill that’s currently going through the UK Parliament on two posts in a row. The bill, if passed, will have a huge impact on the way medicine is practiced here in the UK. There is a serious disagreement at the moment between the government, who think the Health and Social Care Bill is a … Continue reading →

NHS reforms and Andrew Lansley’s conflict of interest

Posted on January 31, 2012 by

Adam

and filed under Healthcare Politics 1 Comment

The Health and Social Care Bill, which, if passed, will introduce widespread changes to the way the NHS is run, has been much in the news lately. It’s probably fair to say that it’s controversial. Doctors don’t want it. Nurses don’t want it. Given that doctors and nurses between them know quite a bit about how the NHS works, that really ought to be enough to give politicians pause for thought. I’m not going to get into a detailed discussion … Continue reading →

Burzynski Clinic in the Observer: PCC response

Posted on January 27, 2012 by

Adam

and filed under Dreadful science reporting in the media Medical ethics Pseudoscience 5 Comments

You may remember that last month I blogged about a hideously irresponsible article in the Observer. To refresh your memory, I said I’d reported them to the Press Complaints Commission and that I’d let you know of any developments. Well, I now have a development to report. The PCC have considered my complaint, and have ruled that the Observer article, while it was indeed misleading, did not breach the code, because it was somebody’s opinion rather than a factual article. … Continue reading →

Legal remedies for ghostwriting

Posted on January 25, 2012 by

Adam

and filed under Medical ethics Medical writing Publications 8 Comments

Everyone agrees that ghostwriting in the medical literature is a bad thing. The question is what can be done to eradicate it. Professional medical writers’ organisations such as EMWA, AMWA, and ISMPP have done their bit by publishing guidelines and position statements and educating their members about ethical publication practices, and there is some evidence that those efforts are pushing things in the right direction, but it’s clear that they are not going to solve the problem by themselves and … Continue reading →

The JBI saga continues

Posted on January 17, 2012 by

Adam

and filed under Medical ethics Publications 2 Comments

Regular readers of this blog will recall my writing about a deeply unpleasant episode in which the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry wrote some unfounded allegations about unethical behaviour by Dianthus Medical, which, after extensive correspondence, they refused to correct. I first wrote about it here, and linked briefly here to a much more detailed account written by my friend Karen Shashok and published on the EMWA website. The chairman of the editorial board of the journal, Paul Komesaroff, has now … Continue reading →

The Burzynski Clinic part 2

Posted on December 5, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Dreadful science reporting in the media Medical ethics 5 Comments

A few years ago, a man called Bernie Madoff was running an investment company. You’ve probably heard of him. He was offering wonderful rates of return on investments, far in excess of what any other investment companies were offering. Of course, the rates of return he was offering couldn’t really be delivered. The whole thing was a scam. Eventually, the FBI came and arrested him and put a stop to his little schemes. You might argue that the FBI therefore … Continue reading →

Making NHS health records available to private companies

Posted on December 5, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Dreadful science reporting in the media Medical ethics Leave a comment

There has been a flurry of activity in the media in recent hours about a proposed plan to make anonymised NHS health records available to private companies. I am completely and utterly baffled by this. It is being presented as if it is something new. It isn’t. The General Practice Research Database (GPRD) already contains vast amounts of anonymised data from NHS patients, and can be made available to private companies who are prepared to pay the appropriate fee. This … Continue reading →

The Burzynski Clinic

Posted on November 25, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Clinical research Dreadful science reporting in the media Medical ethics Pseudoscience 7 Comments

I have seen a number of very sad stories over the last few months that all have something in common. The most recent was printed in the Observer last Sunday. It is an utterly heart-rending story of a little girl who is dying of brain cancer. It is hard to imagine anything more terrible for any parents to have to face. It is understandable that when you find yourself in that situation, you will be prepared to clutch at straws. … Continue reading →

Journal of Bioethical Inquiry and editorial accountability

Posted on November 21, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Medical ethics Medical writing Leave a comment

I wrote back in June about my unpleasant experience of finding some false and defamatory allegations about Dianthus Medical printed in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, and how I was unable to persuade the journal to publish a correction, even though the authors of the article subsequently admitted that they had no evidence to support their allegations. My friend Karen Shashok has recently written a very detailed account of the episode, and draws some wider conclusions about editorial accountability in … Continue reading →

What are medical journals doing to combat ghostwriting?

Posted on November 9, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Medical writing Publications Leave a comment

I have recently written a 2-part guest blogpost for Pharmaphorum about medical ghostwriting. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here. If you haven’t read them, you might want to do so now. I’ll go away and have a cup of tea while you do. OK, are you back? Right, let’s carry on. One of the points I made was that it doesn’t seem to me that medical journals are doing all they could to combat ghostwriting. While … Continue reading →